In retrospect, it was over before it started, but Super Bowl XLVIII still managed to draw more viewers than any other broadcast in U.S. television history.
According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, Fox’s Super Bowl broadcast delivered an average 111.5 million viewers, besting the previous record holder set by NBC in 2012 by the slimmest of margins. (The Peacock’s coverage of the Patriots-Giants rematch delivered 111.3 million viewers.)
With the final numbers in place, the record for Super Bowl deliveries now has been broken in four of the past five seasons running. CBS in 2010 first broke the 100 million mark, as Super Bowl XLIV delivered 106.5 million viewers. The following year, Pittsburgh and Green Bay threw down in front of 111 million Fox viewers; that number stood for just 364 days thanks to the aforementioned New York-New England tilt.
Household ratings were steady versus last year’s game, as Fox averaged a 46.4 rating/69 share, even with CBS’ numbers for the Baltimore-San Francisco battle. The 2013 and 2014 games are tied as the ninth highest-rated in the Super Bowl’s 48-year history. In both cases, 69 percent of households with TVs in use were tuned in to the Big Game.
The all-time highest-rated Super Bowl was the 26th edition, which notched a 49.1 rating/73 share on CBS back in January 1982.
The final deliveries underscore the fact that fast national ratings are effectively meaningless when it comes to assessing the performance of a live, nationwide sports broadcast. Per Nielsen’s preliminary data, the Seahawks-Denver debacle drew just 96.9 million viewers—a variance of 14.6 million viewers, or 15 percent.